In Colorado I always carry a coat

Click the pics of blossoms fair, their beauty is beyond compare. My pathetic pics do their best but cannot equal what natures blessed.

Peony Blossom.

I didn't accomplish much today because it clouded up and started raining before lunch. And since I'm walking from the Arctic Fox to the trash, or to the Lance with loads of mostly junk, I spend a lot of time outside. These icy cold rain showers coming off the mountains will send you scurrying for cover pretty quick, and a drop in the air temperature can be as much as 30° before you know what hit you.

That's what gives a lot of unprepared tourist hikers problems. They don't realize how quickly that 80° summer day can turn into freezing rain, and a 50° day up in the mountains, and they end up hypothermic before they can get back to their car. And like I've mentioned before, in Cripple Creek, Colorado, where it's about 10,000 feet, and where I've spent so much of my time, I've never seen even a summer month when it didn't snow enough to at least make a snowman.

When I moved to the Colorado mountains from Miami, Florida, I had the habit of carrying a coat with me no matter what time of year it was. It could be the middle of August, and I would still have a coat within reach when I was going anywhere. And thats from a guy that didn't even own a long sleeve shirt, much less a coat... I take that back; I brought my Air Force field jacket back to Miami when I was discharged. But besides that, I bought my first real coat shortly before moving to Colorado.

Theboondork

Columbine.

Rosebud.